Wednesday, 14 October 2015

Orphan Black 3x02: Transistory Sacrifices of Crisis


Now this was much better! The previous episode reintroduced the status quo in a fairly straightforward manner only hinted at events to come. In this episode, those plot threads began to move forward and Series 3 starts to get interesting. 

The Castor Clones came into focus in this episode, in particular the efforts of Seth, the scarred clone and Rudy, the one with the moustache. It becomes clear that while they are still officially take orders from Paul Dierden, they have a personal mission. Seth appears to be suffering from a degenerative condition and Rudy hopes to cure this using Dr Ethan Duncan's original genome for the Castor clones, which, along with the Leda genome, has apparently been lost. Their hunt for this brings them into contact with Sarah and Kira. Although Rudy threatens Kira for the genome, he clearly has a protective side for his brothers, much as Sarah does for her sisters. Likewise, Seth's condition puts him in a similar situation to Cosima. It also adds a layer of vulnerability to these characters which almost enough to make you sympathize with these two, even if their treatment of women makes this difficult. Ultimately, Rudy has to put Seth down. 

Sarah's plans to rescue Helena were put on hold as she is forced to look after Kira, making amends with Siobhan and allowing Kira to stay with Carl. She is still nonetheless reckless, when she approaches the Police Station to get answers from a female victim of the Castor brothers. Her best moment comes when she is trying to save Kira from Rudy. Across the three series, Sarah has transitioned from a primarily selfish character to one who wants to protect a larger family. But this is a task that is getting harder and harder. 

Alison takes her first real step in her plan to challenge Marcie as she buys Ramone's drugs as well as the contact details of his clients. This plan is undoubtedly going backfire in some way and it will be fascinating to watch how this happens. Donnie is on Alison's side so far, but this may change if the situation becomes more difficult. 

It was also good to see more of Cosima, who is now in a better state of health and able to contribute something to the plot. She and Scott have yet to understand the contents of Professor Duncan's book but they were able to find out more about the supposed loss of the Castor and Leda genomes from the mysterious Dr Nealon. How far Cosima and Scott will be able to pry in to these matters remains to be seen. 

Felix was once again on the sidelines, though he did try and bring Sarah and Siobhan to make up. Kira proved to be a brave girl in the face of Rudy's threat to her life. 

Helena's pregnancy spares her from the stress tests. Her complete ignorance of the 
voigt kamf style testing was interesting. Dr Cody was an interesting character. Using a veneer of kindness to make Helena cooperate with the military. 

This episode sees the welcome return of several supporting characters, including Carl. His attempts to help Kira and Sarah are in keeping with his goody goody attitude so far, but this time we got a hint of his making money from weapons development which adds a nice shade of grey to his character.  While he promises to look after Kira, we know that this is a promise that is difficult to keep. 

Paul Dierdan also makes a return appearance in this episode. He seems like a no nonsense military man for most of the episode, but his brief encounter with Carl suggests that he still genuinely cares for Sarah and wants her away from Dyad. 

Detective Art is back on the police force and is involved in the case which involves the  Castor Clones. Once again, he's the character who gets used by Sarah for information and dumped when his use is up. 

Our final returning character is Mark, the first Castor clone we ever met. His one scene in the episode, where he burns his Castor identification tattoo from his arm, makes it clear that he knows something of his heritage and is trying to put it behind him as he embarks on married life.. With Sarah on his tail he won't be able to hide from the past for very long. 

The episode concludes with the body of Seth to dump and Alison has a campaign to run. It's a much more compelling ending to an episode and one that makes the next episode worth looking forward to. 

8/10



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